In the News (Fri 18 Aug 17)

With this, the tender process of the octroi and toll taxes in SCB could be held shortly as per schedule.

Octroi has been a political football in the Cantonment for quite a long time, with the State Government and SCB not arriving on a consensus on the issue.

Last year, after the octroi and toll tax tender process for 2006-2007 saw contracts for both soaring to reach a cumulative of Rs.7.4 crores, the Board officials had said the Board would persist with octroi since its abolishment would only lead to a "loss of revenue".

www.hindu.com /2006/12/26/stories/2006122619650300.htm (454 words)

Indian Express: SMC to get tough on octroi front(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

SURAT, Oct 27: The Surat Municipal Corporation has decided to get tough with octroi evaders in a bid to meet the shortfall in its revised target, a reality that has struck the civic body faster than it was hoping to confront.

Incentives would be given to the vigilance staff to bring in more octroi, he said, listing out one of the possible measures that are on the anvil.

However, decrease in the octroi revenue due to recession in textile industry is nothing new.

These vectigalia were either the portorium, a tax on the entry from or departure to the provinces (those cities which were allowed to levy the portorium shared the profits with the public treasury); the ansarium or foricarium, a duty levied at the entrance to towns; or the edulia, sale imports levied in markets.

From an early time the octroi was farmed out to associations or private individuals, and so great were the abuses which arose from the system that the octroi was abolished during the Revolution.

Octroi duties exist in Italy, Spain, Portugal and in some of the towns of Austria.

With the Octroi Committee considering scrapping of the system of giving incentives to employees involved in octroi recovery, there’s bound to be anger.

Jashwantsinh: Thakor, deputy chairman of the Octroi Committee, said the proposal of incentives to employees was discussed at the meeting on Tuesday.

Octroi Committee members, howeyer, admit that the move is likely to cause resentment among employees of the department.

www.ahmedabad.com /news/2k1/nov/octroi.htm (373 words)

Introduction(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

Articles consigned from the octroi limits but returned to the consignor by the transporting authority on account of the refusal of the consignee to accept the delivery of the said articles will be exempted from payment of octroi on production of documentary proof to the satisfaction of the Commissioner.

Articles liable to payment of octroi, imported for the purpose of any exhibition organized by any authority, approved by the government, the local authority or the commissioner may be exempted from the payment of octroi.

The octroi naka officer shall verify the identity of the article specified in the list with the articles imported and shall exempt them from payment of octroi if he is satisfied about the identity of the returned goods.

ICA said 75 per cent of the handsets are sold in the grey market in the state and demanded abolition of octroi.

In Maharashtra, octroi will be abolished as soon as the state government bodies agreed to it.

The grey market in the cellular industry at the national level has been reduced to 35 per cent in the last year and is expected to be further reduced to 20 per cent by the end of the financial year 2004-05.

www.rediff.com /money/2004/feb/11cell.htm (496 words)

City Line(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

The Octroi Department of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is anticipating a massive drop in the recovery of Octroi duty in 1998-99.

The Octroi Department sources further said that the expected drop in the Octroi recovery was largely due to the implementation of the new or rationalised Octroi rates suggested by the Ramesh Mantri Committee.

In fact, senior Octroi officials, including Siddiqui, are of the opinion that to realise the expected recovery, the NMC should have adhered to the earlier rates.

The word "octroi" originating from the French word "octroyer" means "to grant" and in its original use meant "an import" or "a toll" or "a town duty" on goods brought into a town.

It would, however, be seen that the word "octroi" has not been used in our Constitution; instead it refers to taxes on entry of goods into a local area for any of the three purposes mentioned in Entry 52 List II, which in common parlance has come to be known as octroi.

Therefore, whether octroi is leviable on goods brought into the octroi area or not depends on the meaning of the key words "consumption, use or sale therein".

Yet the tax always had a munificent objective: the terrestrial octroi was levied at the entrances to cities whose other revenues were not sufficient to cover their public needs.

Though the octroi de mer was not applied in the same way, since the French colonies were at the time governed by private companies who could spend the revenues they gained from the octroi de mer as they saw fit, the principle was the same.

Not least because it was the exclusions to the octroi de mer rather than the octroi de mer itself whose lawfulness was in question these rulings were perhaps a somewhat uneccessary and unhelpful circumnavigation of the frontier between art.

Countering the CDA allegation on higher octroi rates leading to inflated medicine rates, an SMC press relased maintained that the octroi rates were competitive compared to other municipal corporations in the State.

Shah blamed the SMC for imposing octroi at ``exorbitant'' rates on medicine compared to any of the municipal corporations in the country.

The Pune and Kolhapur municipal corporation charge two percent octroi on medicines while Nagpur Municipal Corporation has reduced the octroi rates to one per cent from the earlier 2.5 percent, he added.

The Octroi Management System (OMS) is a multi-user system developed by Centre for Development of...

The Octroi Management System (OMS) is a multi-user system developed by...

encarta.msn.com /octroi.html (116 words)

Zee News - Octroi to be abolished in Punjab from September 1(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

Octroi to be abolished in Punjab from September 1

The decision, he said, would involve a sacrifice of Rs over 645 crore, which would be offset through segregation of VAT revenue into a municipal development fund, which would be operated by the department of local bodies.

The department would ensure that the present level of revenue from octroi of all the municipal councils in the state was protected and they also get an annual enhancement on the basis of increase in revenue.

www.zeenews.com /znnew/articles.asp?aid=305106&sid=REG (279 words)

Traders form 11-member panel to fight octroi(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

Several chambers and trader organisations today met at the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) under the aegis of GCCI chief Pankaj Patel and formed a 11-member committee to demand abolition of octroi from seven corporations in the State.

They pointed out that when VAT was introduced, the State BJP government had promised the gradual withdrawal of octroi.

Octroi imposition is against the Central government's policy of liberalisation.

“The state complains that the abolition of octroi was one of the major revenue sacrificing measure.

However, octroi was a major source of revenue.

The judgement is significant as, according to the Judges, the impugned Acts passed by the state legislature had debarred municipal committees and corporations from collecting octroi, adversely affecting the working of local bodies.

Ever since the state government's decision to abolish octroi duty from the nagar palikas and municipalities came into effect, industries in AMC jurisdiction are keen to get out of bounds.

Shah adds: "We have had dialogues with the mayor, the chairman of octroi committee and the municipal commissioner informing them of a definite move of large and medium traders to shift outside the octroi net.

The AMC is awaiting the state government's nod on hike in octroi that would take the annual collection of the corporation to Rs 345 crore.

Earlier, the BMC had asked for a copy of the octroi receipt of Sen’s car, but was told that the actress had not submitted the document.

We asked her to produce the octroi receipt confirming that she had paid on Rs 14 lakh for the car.

Officials in the RTO said the receipt was not found with the original papers and after BMC’s letters they found that Sen had not submitted the octroi receipt at the time of registration of her vehicle.

Nagpur: Cutting across party lines, members in the Maharashtra Assembly today demanded abolition of octroi in the state, while BJP staged a walkout on the issue.

BJP members Eknath Khadse raised the issue in the House informing that traders and merchants from all over the state have arrived in the city to press for the demand for abolition of octroi.

He said it was a question of huge revenue and if octroi is abolished, an alternative revenue source has to be identified to take care of the losses.

www.mid-day.com /news/city/2006/december/148255.htm (239 words)

Punjab to abolish Octroi from Sept1(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)

The chief minister said the revenue loss caused by the abolition of octroi would be offset through segregation of Vat revenue into a Municipal Developmental Fund, which would be operated by the department of local government.

The local bodies department would ensure that that the present level of revenue from octroi of all the municipal councils in the state was protected and that they also got an annual enhancement on the basis of increase in revenue.

The chief minister said all octroi posts in the state would be removed by September 1, 2006.

However, in a related development, another bench ordered the status quo till September 5 on the collection of octroi by the contractors in Dhuri town of Sangrur district.

The PIL against abolition of octroi has been filed by Bathinda-based former municipal councilor Mathura Dass Setia, who had also in 2001 fought similar decision by the state government.

It was argued on behalf of the contractors for collection of octroi at Dhuri, that the contract with the municipal council, Dhuri from May 12, 2006 for an year, with specific provision in the agreement that one cannot back out of the contract.

The High Court verdict in the octroi abolition and the reimposition of octroi had come at a very crucial time, when the elections to all the four municipal corporations in the major towns of Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Patiala were just about three weeks away.

The abolition of octroi by the SAD-BJP government towards the fag end of its tenure on December 1, 2001, as a last ditch populist measure to please the trading community, had posed a grave threat to the local bodies in Punjab, which had lost their major source of revenue collection.

Although the then government had given an undertaking in the court to make good the loss of income due to octroi abolition, but the commitment was not fulfilled in letter and spirit and the installment due in the month of March on this account was yet to be disbursed among the MCs in the state.